Half of middle class home owners in the UK fear their properties could be repossessed

The news comes after the Council for Mortgage Lenders forecast that the number of repossessions is likely nearly to double to 75,000 next year.

A YouGov poll, carried out for a new report from Tory MP Grant Shapps, found that 44 per cent of mortgage holders are worried that lenders could force them out of their properties next year.

A similar proportion were worried about not being able to meet mortgage payments between now and the end of 2010.

The study - The New Homeless - found that the concern among homeowners about losing the roof over their heads in the economic downturn stretched across society

more ...

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Peter Schiff interview from May 2002 - Austrians know how to price stuff and thus are not fooled by bubbles and inflation

http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Peter_Schiff?query=Peter+Schiff

http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Austrian_School

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Sir Evelyn de Rothschild on CNBC Dec 10, 2008

http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Evelyn_Robert_de_Rothschild?query=Sir+Evelyn+de+Rothschild

http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Rothschild_banking_family_of_England

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Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

more ...

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Was the 'Credit Crunch' a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam?

There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan -- also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP -- was a boondoggle of an intervention that's flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown.

But perhaps even more troubling than the ad hoc nature of its implementation is the suspicion that has recently emerged that TARP -- hundreds of billions of dollars worth so far -- was sold to Congress and the public based on a Big Lie.

President George W. Bush, fabulist-in-chief, articulated the rationale for the program in that trademark way of his -- as if addressing a nation of slow-witted 12-year-olds -- on Sept. 24: "Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse ... [and] began holding onto their money, and lending dried up, and the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt." Bush said that if Congress didn't give Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson the trillion dollars (give or take) for which he was asking, the results would be disastrous: "Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession."

For the most part, the press has continued to echo Bush's central assertion that there's a "credit crunch" preventing even qualified borrowers -- that's the key point -- from getting loans, and it's now part of the conventional wisdom.

more ...

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The Disciplined Investor with Peter Schiff

Andrew and Peter explore the global meltdown and the potential winners emerging out of the ashes. How has his theory of a global market decoupling performed for his investment clients during 2008?

http://www.thedisciplinedinvestor.com/blog/2008/12/30/tdi-episode-89-crashproofn-with-peter-schiff/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/thedisciplinedinvestor/EBHR/~5/498619627/tdi_episode89.mp3

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140,000 uk families are living on handouts worth in excess of £20,000 a year

An astonishing 140,000 households are pocketing more in benefits than the average take-home wage.

The families are living on handouts worth in excess of £20,000 a year, official figures show.

The enormous payouts dwarf the incomes of millions of hard-working families who are struggling to cope with the recession and the rising cost of living.

The average salary is £25,100 before tax, but after deductions it shrinks to £19,126. In contrast, state benefits are tax-free.

A worker would have to earn £27,000 a year to take home more than £20,000.

more ...

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Gordon Brown is using the recession to test the character of the British people but the church thinks he is morally corrupt !

In next week's New Year message, the prime minister is expected to urge the public to "display the same spirit" as their predecessors did in World War II.

He will also describe US president-elect Barack Obama as a "catalyst" for tackling global issues.

And Mr Brown will demand that the public work together in an effort to build a "better tomorrow".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7801665.stm

Five Anglican bishops have attacked the government by calling into question the morality of its policies.

The bishops of Durham, Winchester, Hulme, Manchester and Carlisle told the Sunday Telegraph the UK was beset by family breakdown, debt and poverty.

Bishop of Manchester the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch said Labour was "beguiled by money" and "morally corrupt".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7801667.stm

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Man-made global warming just a joke propagated by the BBC and scientists paid to produce warming computer simulations ?

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

more ...

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We knew about the 'crazy' mortgages, but Bank of England admits it failed to grasp scale of crisis

He admitted there is a risk that billions of pounds will be lost by the two embattled banks.

Perhaps more worrying, he said the bank's base interest rate, recently slashed in an attempt to kickstart borrowing, was a 'blunt instrument' - and new tools were needed to help steer Britain through the crisis.

New 'policy instruments' were being discussed, which would 'make it expensive for banks to expand rapidly in the upswing', he said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1099662/We-saw-crazy-mortgages-failed-spot-dangers-debt-Bank-chiefs-startling-admission-financial-crisis.html

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BBC Panorama: The Year Britain's Bubble Burst

It has been a cataclysmic year for our banks and economy, and a year in which the role of the BBC's Business Editor has been in the spotlight as never before.

With exclusive interviews with the major players, Robert Peston reflects on how these momentous events will affect us all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gbds9


Spend a few minutes with the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston, as he explains why we are in the middle of a global financial crisis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7688308.stm

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Madoff: How Do You Steal $50 Billion Dollars?

Bernard Madoff, president of the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities financial advisory firm, was arrested by FBI agents and later charged with securities fraud on December 11, 2008. The charges stem from Madoff's alleged involvement in a Ponzi scheme in which investors lost an estimated $50 billion.

On December 17, 2008, Madoff was released on bond. The judge gave him a curfew and issued him a monitoring bracelet. Madoff will be confined to his $7 million Park Avenue apartment. Madoff had to sign over his Upper East Side apartment and homes in Palm Beach and the Hamptons to make the $10 million bond.





Madoff's Money Trail Leads to Washington

Naturally, the Madoff money trail of special favors and exceptions leads straight to Washington. From 1998 through 2008, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities paid $590,000 lobbying Congress and the SEC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His lobby firm for most of those years was Lent, Scrivner & Roth, with Norman F. Lent III signing the disclosure documents in the House and Senate. One of Madoff’s hot button issues during those years according to the disclosure documents was getting a single regulator. That meant, for starters, merging those prying eyes over at the New York Stock Exchange into the clubby pool of self-regulators at the National Association of Securities Dealers where the Madoff family held numerous seats of power. That wish came true when NASD Regulation merged with the enforcement and arbitration units of the New York Stock Exchange in July 2007 to create the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

http://www.counterpunch.org/martens12222008.html#

http://www.mahalo.com/Bernard_Madoff

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The UK economy will shrink by 2.9% in 2009 - more than at any time since the 1940s

A stark picture of the prospects for the UK economy has been painted by an independent group of economists.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicts the economy will shrink by 2.9% in 2009 - more than at any time since the 1940s.

It expects consumer spending to decline and investment in business to slump.

The forecasters say exporters will be helped by the slump in the pound's value, but even their prospects will be held back by a global slowdown.

more ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7796960.stm

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Warren E. Buffett, the world’s greatest investor

What Everybody Ought To Know About Warren Buffett - Episode #31 from The Way To Build Wealth on Vimeo.

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The Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Ludwig von Mises Institute is the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics. Working in the intellectual tradition of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), with a vast array of publications, programs, and fellowships, the Mises Institute, with offices in Auburn, Alabama, seeks a radical shift in the intellectual climate as the foundation for a renewal of the free and prosperous commonwealth.

http://mises.org/about.aspx

The future of the dollar (1996):
http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Freedom96/03_Freedom_Salerno.mp3

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Benoit Mandelbrot thinks we're all screwed

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Roubini:`Panic' May Force Market Shutdown

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Sign of the times: about 1,000 apply to burger joint for 50 jobs

Some wore ties. Some wore their pants too low. Some were balding. Some owed two months of mortgage payments. Some spoke openly of suicide. Some asked this reporter for a job. Some asked the manager at the hotel hosting the event for a job.

Ahead of a new In-N-Out restaurant opening in Las Vegas, close to 1,000 applied for a $10-an-hour job flipping or serving burgers. There are 50 available jobs, at most.

Sharell Hewlett, who will be one of the managers of the new restaurant and had the frontline job of handing out applications, said she found the range of applicants, from teens to retirement age, "incredible."

There was 42-year-old Freda Beckwith, who Wednesday observes three months of joblessness. Her resume ends at the Bellagio, where she was a cashier until Sept. 17, when she and 14 others in her department were stripped of their jobs.

more ...

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Sanjay Reddy: US Can No Longer Fund the Empire

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From pension blunder to Sats debacle, oversized Whitehall bureaucracy wreaks havoc. But those with power cling to it

Organising an examination for Britain's teenagers should not be too tough a job. For half a century, local government managed it. Yet from the moment testing was nationalised under the Tories it went berserk. Ministers floundered, claiming to "need to know" everything about the nation's young. In the decade from its introduction by John Patten in 1993, the cost of testing and league tables rose from £10m to £610m. Each July saw a flood of "exam fiasco" stories. Nobody could agree over standards. A secretary of state - Estelle Morris - resigned, and officials and private companies came, went, resigned or were sacked.

Last summer the testing regime reached its nadir. Nobody had been found in all Britain up to the task of running an attainment test for 14-year-olds. The "market price" for such a paragon was eventually fixed at a salary of £328,000, a flat in west London, membership of a yacht club in Sydney harbour and six club-class tickets round the world. This obscene reward went to an Australian, Ken Boston, who proved unable to do the job without spending a further £156m on an American company, ETS (Educational Testing Services). In July hundreds of thousands of exam papers were delayed or improperly marked, and another fiasco was declared as such by Lord Sutherland in his Sats inquiry report last night.

Exams are not alone. Yesterday's newspapers contained tales of woe from the following corners of the public sector: a pensions overpayment, a BBC audience voting farce, a transport department efficiency scam and a knife-crime statistics shocker. Only the ID card and NHS computer shambles disappeared briefly from the spotlight.

more ...

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Peter Schiff: Will Washington Save Detroit ? 12/12/2008

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America Has No Means to Recover from a Depression

Speaking in front of members of Congress on Tuesday, economist Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland, said the job loss experienced in November "was much worse than was expected ... The threat of a widespread depression is now real and present."

Many economic observers have justifiably stated that the U.S. is in the midst of the greatest recession facing the nation since the Great Depression. On Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally acknowledged what most of Americans have known for some time: that the U.S. is officially in a deep and painful recession. Few, if any, however, will dare to call the current downturn a Depression. Actually, the department responsible for categorizing our economic condition, NEBR, refuses to use the term, although most Americans, judging by what they see and what is happening to them, realize we are truly entering a depression.

more ...

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More than 22,000 people are chasing 500 "high flyer" jobs in Whitehall

More than 22,000 people are chasing 500 "high flyer" jobs in Whitehall as the credit crunch leads bright young graduates to spurn business for a job in government.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, will tell MPs today that there has been a 33% rise in the number of people wanting to join the fast stream of the civil service.

These are the people who take jobs in ministers' private offices and are trained to be the next generation of senior civil servants who will formulate policy and run big government agencies.

The competition for top jobs in Whitehall has increased dramatically because of job insecurity in private business, Sir Gus will tell the Commons public administration committee. He will say that the civil service is now attracting applications from young redundant bankers following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and staff cuts at other City firms.

more ...

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-50% for 2008. If this isn't a buy signal what is ?

This is a graphic of the Standard and Poor's stock index's annual returns, placing every year since 1825 in a column of returns from -50% to +60%.



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6/12/2008 Peter Schiff On Your Money: Vanishing Jobs

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Peter Schiff On Car Bailouts: 4/12/2008

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US job losses reach 34-year high, World economy 'weakest since 30s', UK House prices still falling fast

US employers axed 533,000 jobs in November, the biggest monthly cut in 34 years, the US Labor Department said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7767326.stm

The United Nations says the world economy faces its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7757506.stm

House prices fell another 2.6% in November, the Halifax says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7764272.stm

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Sell The Rallies, says Nassim Taleb

http://www.1440wallstreet.com/index.php/site/comments/sell_the_rallies_says_nassim_taleb/

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Don't Bail Out the US Housing Market - Martin Wolf

Financial journalist Martin Wolf argues against any proposed government "bailout" of the U.S. housing market.



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The World's Worst Banker?

In the past couple of years, the entire global lending industry has covered itself in shame. Virtually every banker was suckered by the credit and housing bubble. But who made the sorriest choices? Who forced shareholders and the public to bear the highest financial cost? Who, in short, is the Worst Banker in the World?

There's no dearth of candidates. Richard Fuld of Lehman Bros. and James Cayne of Bear Stearns presided over the remarkably disruptive failures of their respective firms. But Bear and Lehman weren't banks, properly speaking: They were hedge funds lashed to investment banks. And their demises didn't require much of a public bailout. The failures of AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac necessitated massive bailouts, but they weren't exactly banks, either. Iceland's bankers have effectively brought their entire country to ruin. But since Iceland's population is a mere 300,000, they're off the hook. In an interview Monday, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman nominated the gang that ran Citigroup into the ground. But Citi was so big it took three CEOs—Sandy Weill, Chuck Prince, and Vikram Pandit—to bring it to the brink of disaster.

more ...

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UK Buy to let will not die ???

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Krugman on the housing bubble and deficits

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01krugman.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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